Modern Physics

Teacher: Michael Fowler

Index of Lectures

Special Relativity

12 lecturesGalilean Relativity and the Invariance of Newton's Laws.
The Speed of LightThe Michelson-Morley Experiment.
Special Relativity
Time dilation and length contraction.
The relativity of simultaneity.
The Lorentz transformations.
A worked example of time dilation.
The twins and other paradoxes, and the Doppler effect.
Velocity Addition.
Relativistic dynamics: mass, relativistic momentum and energy.
Equivalence of mass and energy: Einstein's Box.
Relativistic energy-momentum formula.
Particle Creation.


Electric and Magnetic fields in Relativity.
Remarks on General Relativity.

Brief Review of the Kinetic Theory of Gases

Photons

4 lecturesBlackbody Radiation.
Blackbody Radiation: Notes.
How Planck Discovered the Quantum (optional reading for the curious).The Photoelectric Effect.
Rays and Particles.

Atoms

6 lecturesBrief Historical Review.
Atomic Spectra
Early Atomic Models: Vortices and Pudding
Rutherford's Experiment and the Beginning of Nuclear Physics.
The Bohr Atom.

Particles and Waves

4 lecturesFrom the Bohr Atom to De Broglie's Waves.
Wave Packets and the Uncertainty Principle.
Probabilities, Amplitudes and Probability Amplitudes.
More on the Uncertainty Principle.

Schrodinger's Equation

6 lecturesWave Equations for Photons and Electrons.
Electron in a Box.
Finite Square Well
Simple harmonic oscillator.

Barrier penetration.
Two-dimensional Wells.
Three dimensional waves,the hydrogen atom, angular momentum.

Many Electron Atoms

3 lecturesSymmetry of the wavefunction: fermions and bosons.
Angular Momentum, Electron spin, The periodic table.

Nuclear Physics

3 lecturesStable and unstable nuclei, decay mechanisms, nuclear fission.